


just like his father

by modernpatroclus



Series: raven!neil [2]
Category: All For the Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe, Baltimore, M/M, Panic Attacks, Past Rape/Non-con, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Raven!Neil, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-02
Updated: 2016-07-02
Packaged: 2018-07-19 15:32:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7367359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/modernpatroclus/pseuds/modernpatroclus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>prompt: Andreil moment when Neil gets so into being Nathaniel that Andrew is having a tough time reminding Neil of who he really is</p><p>Or: Nathaniel knew he could only pretend to be Neil Josten for so long.</p>
            </blockquote>





	just like his father

**Author's Note:**

> i’m using this prompt as a means to my own end – this is basically the events of baltimore but in my raven!neil verse
> 
> i borrowed a lot of lines from tkm, so whatever you recognize comes from there
> 
> title comes from new americana by halsey

When Neil starts getting a countdown from a number with a Baltimore area code, he knows his father is coming for him.

The deal with the Moriyamas would have been a nightmare to anyone else, but to a young Nathaniel, it was a blessing. He would belong to people like a pet, but he would get to do the only thing he was ever allowed to enjoy, and only that, until “Exy” became synonymous in his mind with “survive.” And he would never have to live with his father again. He was sold, he was cast-off, but he could not have been more relieved.

He was not his father’s business anymore – until the texts start.

Neil ignores them until they get to zero, until Lola’s voice is in his ear on the phone and she tells him he _will_ come with her or the Foxes will pay his price. Because that is all Nathaniel Wesninski has ever been: a debt to be paid off in one form or another.

And he knows, right then, as he climbs into a car with his father’s people: Neil Josten won’t save him this time, not like it saved him from the Ravens. He has to become Nathaniel again, if he wants to survive. But this time, he may have to stay Nathaniel.

Even when he joined the Foxes, Nathaniel knew he could only pretend to be Neil Josten for so long. The blood in his veins is half-Hatford blood – and, like his mother, his Wesninski blood will catch up eventually. He was short, after all; he could only run so far.

* * *

“Why are you doing this? You sold me,” Nathaniel says to his father. The man who shares his face – the reason Neil Josten can’t look in the mirror without feeling like he’s going to throw up – is standing across from him in the basement of Nathaniel’s childhood home wielding a cleaver. “I wasn’t your problem anymore.”

“You became my problem again when you ran from Moriyama,” his father snarls. Even as he corners Nathaniel with murder in his eyes, Nathan looks gleeful. Nathaniel’s stomach lurches, and it’s all he can do to keep his feet planted and not run to the door.

“He claims I owe him because his investment is gone. He won’t take you back, either. You are a flight risk.” Nathaniel’s back is pressed into the wall, and he bites his lip to hold back a cry of pain when the cleaver pierces his skin. “It’s just as well. You have been a constant thorn in my side since the day you were born. A waste of a son. I cannot wait to hear you beg for mercy as I kill you.” He punctuates the words with a deep cut down the center of Nathaniel’s chest, purposely paralleling an old scar from when he was a child. The blade is dull, and it only increases the pain. Nathaniel can’t hold back the scream that escapes him. His father laughs and digs the blade in further.

Before Nathaniel can say, “Please,” the word he himself never hated but understands why Andrew does, the door at the top of the stairs busts open and a spray of bullets rains down on them.

* * *

When Nathaniel wakes up in the hospital with only two Feds for company, he’s not surprised.

He feels panic spike inside him when he realizes he’s restrained to the bed with handcuffs. Memories of Riko standing over him with a knife and a wicked grin; of a nondescript Raven grunting in his ear as he fucked Nathaniel, who thrashed and tore his wrists bloody the whole time; of Lola laughing gleefully as he screamed from the pain of knives and lighters in the backseat of a car.

The Feds don’t uncuff him, and Nathaniel refuses to beg. He does keep his silence about his father until they agree to take him to the Foxes.

Andrew kneels in front of him on a hotel floor with close to twenty pairs of eyes and ears on them, able to be understood in any language they speak.

It’s not until Abby has left them alone in a hotel room after tending to Nathaniel’s injuries that he lets himself give into the waves of _all of it_ threatening to drown him on dry land _._

“I can’t be Neil anymore.” He’s curled in on himself on the bed, shaking so badly that the whole frame is moving with him. Andrew is sitting in front of him, not touching him yet.

“You are Neil Josten.” Neil frantically shakes his head, because if he even hears the words he might start to hope again. He’d thought he was free of his father, then his father came back. He’d thought he was free of the Ravens; now he’s waiting to hear from his uncle on what will become of him from the main branch of the Moriyamas.

Any hope is too much.

“No, no, I’m not. I can’t be that person anymore,” he denies, until the words are a string of frantic babbling.

He only he stops talking when he feels a hand on his neck.

“Listen to me. You are Neil _._ Whatever you did to survive your father doesn’t matter anymore. Nathan Wesninski is dead. Bury the whole family here in Baltimore. You don’t have to be Nathaniel anymore.”

The grip on his neck is a force that should weigh him down, but it pulls him out of his blind hysteria. It does more to steady Nathaniel than a hug from one of the other Foxes ever could.

He chokes on a gasp when he tries to speak, but Andrew understands his own name. “ _Neil._ ” It’s so much more than a name, the way Andrew says it – it’s a promise, a truth, a man with a home.

Nathaniel tests the name out on his own tongue. “Neil Josten.” Andrew’s hand tightens against his neck, grounding him before even he thinks about running.

Neil leans into Andrew, solid and steady and willing to shoulder all of Neil’s problems despite his words. “I hate you.”

And despite everything that’s happened in the impossible space of the last 60 hours, Neil laughs. It’s more air than sound and more desperate than anything, but he’s alive to make it and Andrew doesn’t say anything about the edge of hysteria. He lets Neil press his forehead to Andrew’s like he had after he picked Neil up – physically and mentally – from Evermore.

“You are a mess,” Andrew says, for the second time.

Neil doesn’t say anything this time. He nods, their noses brushing against each other. Andrew grips the front of his shirt and waits until Neil meets his gaze. Neil nods again, responding to the unspoken question.

Neil feels like he’s drowning, so Andrew kisses him like his lips are Neil’s only source of oxygen. When they break apart, Neil finally feels like he can breathe again.

Andrew says, “If you ever pull shit like this again, I will kill you.”

“What, almost getting killed?” Neil asks, even though he knows what Andrew’s talking about, just to see Andrew scowl. “Haven’t you heard? I’m a murder magnet.”

“And a martyr. Stop trying to sacrifice yourself for other people like some kind of hero. Your humanity is disgusting.”

“You know I’d do it all over again.”

“That’s because you’re an idiot.”

Neil grins. “You like me though.”

“I hate you,” Andrew corrects. It’s the second time in the space of ten minutes that he’s said it, and it doesn’t sound any more true than the first time.

“Keep telling yourself that.” Andrew glares at him. “It won’t work on me, though. I’m well-versed in repressing.”

“Well now you can be a Fox and play Exy until your junkie heart collapses.”

“If my uncle’s deal goes through,” Neil reminds. They’re still waiting to hear if Neil will have to return to the Nest, be killed, or if Stuart has miraculously struck a new deal that will somehow allow Neil to finish out his contract with Palmetto.

Just as Neil starts to spiral again, Andrew crashes his thoughts to a halt. “Stop being a drama queen. You sound like Kevin.”

* * *

After Lola carved his face with a knife, after she burned it with a dashboard lighter, the face that stares back at Nathaniel in the mirror has never looked so gruesome. He should be horrified at the wounds, raw from air exposure for the first time.

But as he stares at himself in the mirror of the tiny bathroom of his shared dorm of Fox Tower, all he can feel is relief. Because for the first time, he can face his own reflection as Neil. For the first time, he is not the spitting image of his father.

For the first time, Andrew’s promise of _“You don’t have to be Nathaniel anymore”_ feels like a truth.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you liked!


End file.
